The man at the wheel again listened to the Gabriel voice; and Mr.Pike, on the deck below, listened and repeated the will of the voice; and Captain West, in slender and stately balance, leaned into the face of the wind and slowly paced the deck.
It was magnificent.

Now, and for the first time, I knew the sea, and the men who overlord the sea.

Captain West had vindicated himself, exposited himself.

At the height and crisis of storm he had taken charge of the _Elsinore_, and Mr.Pike had become, what in truth was all he was, the foreman of a gang of men, the slave-driver of slaves, serving the one from beyond--the Samurai.
A minute or so longer Captain West strolled up and down, leaning easily into the face of this new and abominable gale or resting his back against it, and then he went below, pausing for a moment, his hand on the knob of the chart-room door, to cast a last measuring look at the storm-white sea and wrath-sombre sky he had mastered.
Ten minutes later, below, passing the open cabin door, I glanced in and saw him.

Sea-boots and storm-trappings were gone; his feet, in carpet slippers, rested on a hassock; while he lay back in the big leather chair smoking dreamily, his eyes wide open, absorbed, non-seeing--or, if they saw, seeing things beyond the reeling cabin walls and beyond my ken.